Surfactant-assisted synthesis of hierarchical NH2-MIL-125 for the removal of organic dyes

NH2-MIL-125(Ti) is a promising microporous MOF material which has potential applications in photocatalytic and catalytic oxidation reactions. In this work, a facile surfactant assistant synthetic method was employed to obtain hierarchical NH2-MIL-125 with the mesoporosity for photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes. The as-prepared NH2-MIL-125 showed excellent dye removal efficiency due to the combination of improved adsorption and photodegradation. Compared with the microporous NH2-MIL-125, the adsorption capacity of organic dyes increased 28% on hierarchical NH2-MIL-125 and the photodegradation rate approximately increased 2.4 times according to the structure with abundant mesopores and macropores. The morphology of hierarchical NH2-MIL-125 can also be modulated from tetragonal plates to truncated bipyramids and octahedrons, and the obtained catalyst shows similar enhanced photodegradation performance.